ONE: Epilogue of Hermesh

7. Annokh's Wormhole

Traditionally, the posts of science officers on board Amarthian ships were never military but civilian. It was a practice that dated back to when Amarthian ships first left their own star system for space exploration. Later it was decided that when it came to making specific decisions to safeguard the interest of the crew and the ship, scientists should have the authority to overrule the commanding officer. Therefore, selecting them from outside the military establishment was considered one of the ways to keep their decision-making impartial and objective, without the pressure of the ship's internal military command structure.

However, that didn't prevent Amarthian scientists from joining the Zaarnan Imperial Force. The rule only stopped someone being a science officer while serving in the military and vice versa. Unlike Commander Tekkar, who was a distinguished young physicist before joining the military, Captain Demock Porthel was a professor who was brought in to temporarily serve on board Tooran. He was considered to be an expert on wormholes.

Observing Captain Porthel seated next to Tekkar who was looking right back at him, Commodore Reemon Erra realised that getting answers from and convincing the Captain of his proposal might be a tougher challenge than he had originally anticipated. But then, luckily, after invoking the Primary Protocol, Erra knew that if need be, he now had the authority to override the Captain's recommendations or objections.

"Captain Porthel, I assume that you are up to speed with our current situation?" Erra asked.

"Yes I am, Commodore," the Captain replied.

"As we speak, enemy ships have, in all probability, already entered the wormhole and are heading for Ralnac. In other words, we do not have much time. So please keep your answers as brief as you can." Erra said, without standing on ceremony.

"Yes. Understood, Commodore."

"Very well then. Could you quickly explain the difference between the normal wormhole that we use to navigate and the one that we are in right now?"

Erra could see the Captain's demeanour change momentarily at the opportunity to explain something from his field. However, giving Tekkar a sidelong glance Captain Porthel curtailed his enthusiasm.

"A wormhole is basically any tunnel that connects two points of space through subspace. This can be a naturally occurring phenomenon. However, almost all the wormholes that we have seen in our lifetime are artificially created."

Taking a brief pause, Captain Porthel checked if his explanation was meeting the approval of his listener before continuing, "Now, contrary to popular belief, we don't take two distant points in linear space before bending the very fabric of space-time to connect them by drilling a tunnel through subspace."

Pausing for a moment, the Captain used his hand generator to bring forth a virtual image of space time. The cosmic masses from stars and planets looked three dimensional, while the space they rested and moved on seemed soft and mushy.

"Real space time, as you may know, Commodore, only gives the illusion of being linear. The mass of every object floating in space creates these massive indentations within the fabric of space time. Imagine it like an invisible sea where the waves rise and fall, even though we may not see them. When creating the standard wormholes that we normally use to travel, we artificially generate very specific kinds of subatomic particles. Known generally as 'negative particles', these particles can only exist in sub space. They are also in a state of perpetual motion, at speeds much faster than light.

After creating the particles, we fired them into the fabric of time and space from opposite ends of these massive indentations ...."

As Erra watched on, two sparkling dots of lights emerged in the dark, across the big black frozen wave like curvature. They each fired two beams of light that penetrated the curvature to connect with one another.